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“The Curated Object will become an important resource for collectors, designers, journalists, and enthusiasts from across the spectrum of design. At last, the design world will have its own clock.”-
ELLEN LUPTON, Cooper-Hewitt Curator, Design Journalist, Writer, Critic and Proprietor of DESIGN, WRITING, RESEARCH

HOW IT WORKS

Find an exhibition and GO!

We are a NON-PROFIT guide and educational resource
(a 501(c)(3)-pending organization). Use our listings to find DECORATIVE ARTS + DESIGN EXHIBITIONS by CITY, COUNTRY or OPENING DATE. We do not accept advertising. We are interested in research and analyses by design philosophers, curators, antiquaries, museologists and radical historians. Send a press release so we can create a complimentary museum exhibition listing. Contact: CuratedObject@Gmail.com

Our Philosophy

Sometimes whispering and other times shouting, objects have their own time and cadence. The Curated Object is interested in the exhibition of objects and those who find our engagement with them compelling. Objects act out all the time and revolt against us. Listening carefully is our quest.

This year, A+D Museum’s annual gala was “Celebrate: Groundswell”—a tribute to the vibrant surf and skate cultures that enliven the Los Angeles area. Challenging designers, architects, and artists to use surf and skate boards as inspiration for their projects, the A+D helped to produce a dynamic collection of pieces that went up for silent auction (100% of proceeds went toward funding the A+D Museum and its programs).

The creators rose to the occasion. Their work not only utilized boards as canvasses, as in the case of Richard Meier & Partners, or played with boards’ fragmentation, as did Karten:Design's “Endless Sinter”; but they also transformed the boards into components of larger pieces, such as Arup’s untitled surfboard table. Other creators, working in more traditional media, considered how the boards and their related spaces could provoke visual fantasies and dreamscapes that pushed viewers beyond the two-dimensions of painting and photography (a favorite in this category was Jerome LeBlanc’s “Surfing la Cité des Anges”).

What became increasingly noticeable among this spread of pieces was how surf and skate cultures draw attention to the interconnectedness of Los Angeles’ urban and natural spaces: their evolutionary flux as well as humans’ place within those sites. Over and again, these artists pushed attendees to ask: how does Los Angeles leave an impression on us, and what marks are we leaving behind?

One key example of this visual query is Kevin Corrado via the Carlos Reed Gallery’s “Transfer Blue,” a photograph depicting a man’s blue-stained hand against the Pacific backdrop. Representing ambivalent causality in its single frame, “Transfer Blue” leaves viewers uncertain of what leaves the mark and what is marked: has the man’s blue hand painted the ocean, or has the ocean transferred its blueness to him? A host of meaningful personal, communal, environmental, and ethical responses exist for either possibility.

A more light-hearted engagement with this concern is O’E2’s “+/- Board.” This sculptural series, which shares a skate board deck’s impression in plastic, mesh, painted wood, and foam, suggests how deeply embedded the board and its implied rider are within the urban landscape.

Supporting emcee Boise Thomas’s apt assertion that “Los Angeles is a city known for youth”—that of its inhabitants as well as its constantly “evolving and reinventing architecture”—several pieces also emphasized the past, present, and future of surf and skate. Using sustainable bamboo and iconic illustrations, Imaginary Forces’ “SoCal Surf” paid homage to the culture’s continuing lightheartedness. Similarly, Orgassian Designs with Ann Sacks utilized a traditional skateboard deck, but decorated its surface in an endless reiteration of Japanese weave that suggests no clear end or beginning.

Though many of the participating designers admittedly privileged form over function in their pieces (see, for example, AECOM’s “Hang Ten Million,”) the “Celebrate: Groundswell” planners never let attendees forget that surf and skate are, at base, always tied to action. The swells of gala-goers moved rhythmically to beats provided by Raul Campos, witnessed art occur in real-time thanks to the talented Gregory Adamson, and witnessed boards and apparel come alive on the runway thanks to a host of athletic and healthy looking models (a delight in a world that still privileges a less than realistic bodily ideal).

Much like the items up for auction, attendees’ sartorial decisions were diverse. Ranging from Badgley Mischka cocktail wear to flowing jersey hibiscus print Tilly, the dresses’ color and pattern created a swelling sense of motion that matched the crowd’s energy as it moved from applauding Adamson’s performance art in the outdoor courtyard, to shouting approval for their favorite boards’ appearance on the runway, to laughing along with Thomas and his quips during the show. Not surprisingly, a crowd-favorite of the night was reflective of this: SPF Architect’s lounge chair in black—a piece which, according to Jennifer Convy, “Seems like something alive, really moving and not just simply boards and nails.”

Attendees gather near the runway

Ultimately, this A+D fundraiser stood out for its ability to treat high design as an important cultural concept in need of preservation while also making it accessible and playful. This event invited stakeholders new and old, from any background, to celebrate and participate in maintaining Los Angeles and its innovations. For Jacki Breger, founder and director of educational non-profit City Life, that is what A+D really provides: a chance for “teaching young people what this city has to offer.”

A+D Museum is dedicated to exhibiting progressive architecture and design to the LA area, and it is committed to partners such as City Life, who seek to use art, history, and architecture to educate local children and teenagers.

Sometimes the stars align.The Bienenstock Furniture Library has been on our list of resources since The Curated Object launched many years ago. When our lovely and generous literary design writer, Saxon Henry, asked if she could do a first-person account for us about her time at the the library during her trip to Highpoint Market, I was over the moon! Enjoy her beautiful prose. Oh, and those stars? Obviously Saxon and the library. - Joanne

The Bienenstock Furniture Library, Where "You Cannot Not Know History"

Consider that Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe was born less than 100 years after Hepplewhite published the first edition of The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide. For our warp-speed culture, this may seem like an eternity but when measuring the advance through the lens of time immemorial, it’s a blip on the proverbial radar screen

This realization came to light in a sunny salon at the Bienenstock Furniture Library in High Point, North Carolina, recently. Set within the Colonial Revival-style former residence of Sandy and Bernice Bienenstock, the library exudes a nurturing feel that is rare for establishments housing intellectual properties—and considering it holds one of the world’s largest collections of design and architecture intelligence, it’s quite fitting that it does. Sandy built the mainstay of the library’s collection slowly after purchasing Furniture World Magazine in the 1930s. The books, amassed to enhance his education about furniture and all facets related to its design, filled the shelves of his NYC apartment for years as he visited High Point Market at the helm of the publication. Along the way, his desire to share the collection—3,000 of the 5,000 books contained on the library's shelves today—grew to be a quest.

Editor's Note: It is our absolute pleasure and honour to feature this wonderful essay by Morgan Walsh, a curator whose voice is altering the conversation about design, architecture and display-- and what it means to "object." Walsh is the one to watch.

Tele Vision, as the curatorial statement reveals, is not just about television as an object, though it surely prompted many playful ideas, but as a way of viewing the work within the exhibition. After many hours viewing and discussing each architect and designer’s concepts, media and installation plans, overarching themes in the way each thought about and presented their ideas began to emerge. Rather than honing in on often overused and sometimes vague issues like sustainability, re-use, and innovative design – though these themes surfaced too – it became obvious that these projects were only glimpses into what each designer and architect had to offer, the seedlings of the future work in each student’s post-graduate career. Though whole within their own right, the projects are experiments and trials, exercises in putting work out there and collecting the feedback. Just as television networks create pilots of shows to measure interest and gather responses to new ideas or narratives (narrative being another theme that came up again and again in discussions and informed the curatorial view), each installation within Tele vision is an inquiry into what works and doesn’t work in an exhibition space. In preparing for prime time, so to speak, the process of installation, like the creation of a pilot, became just as important as the finished product.

Different from many exhibitions, the work comprising a graduate student show is rarely complete prior to installation. Sometimes still evolving and surely still being finalized, the process of making bleeds from studio to gallery, and in Tele vision the process of creation became a central theme in the final installation. The need to showcase process first began to manifest itself in conversations with architects; unable to exhibit finished products in the same manner as their object and fashion designer counterparts, they were intent on presenting the journey of their thoughts, through research, models, drawings and renders. Perhaps concerned their work would appear incomplete or inarticulate many balked at the suggestion of banning boards – a tool used in classes and critiques to display work. Instead they were encouraged to think of their entire exhibition space as a board, positioning each individual piece of work in conversation with the next, creating a narrative. It was from this exclusion of boards that the importance of the installation process and the need to represent the development of each project became inseparably intertwined. As a way to hang individual architectural representation, magnets were introduced, giving both curators and students a useful way to test out the placing and spacing of different aspects of their work. In the same way a curator pads a checklist, bringing out a few extra paintings from storage to play with, providing a buffer in the final hanging, the use of magnets meant that students were able to hang and re-hang – sometimes leaving out images or text that seemed integral at the beginning. Easily installed, removed and placed again, magnets also meant flexibility until the last moments of installation. For one student, whose work changed dramatically and frequently throughout the installation process, this proved an invaluable asset.

Process too played an important role for the designers – though in a different capacity than for the architects. Arriving in the gallery with carts and boxes, their work appeared to need little more than simple assembly in previously designated spaces. However, a deeper knowledge of each project was gained through its construction in the physical space. Though revelations during assembly may be commonplace occurrences in the construction of many exhibitions, the putting together, taking apart, arranging and rearranging of the work by it’s makers, rather than gallery staff, meant that each designer was able to acquire a better understanding of their work, a more-thorough understanding of it’s pros and cons, challenges and strengths. They were able to see the project as other people would see it, test out views, angles and display. The A-HA moments also came in efforts to disguise cords, project images in less-than-dark spaces, hear sound and offer interactive aspects. Though it may have been too late in the game to alter pieces or reconstruct elements, the process of the assembly and arrangement of the work offered designers feedback that could not have been garnered any other way. In the same way I’ve presented and defended my research at conferences, those exhibiting in Tele vision were asked to physically articulate their concepts and ideas – each presentation and project hopefully better than the last, built on insight gained from previous occasions.

For the curatorial team the exhibition process began long before the physical installation. Using the maquettes students created of their to-be-installed work we tested out placement and configuration in a scale-model of the gallery. The process was quick considering the timeline, but constant: would projects benefit from placement near a window or in a bay? How would a drawing create dialogue and discussion with object, a sound piece with sculpture? Or not? As with any exhibition it was vital to keep the show visually exciting; how would work appear as one turned a corner and came upon it, what could be seen beyond the immediate sightline, could there be a view past, or through, the work at hand? It was also important to find a balance between topics and themes and the media of the work. I was initially wary of the choice to flood hallways and egresses rather than bays with large sculptural work and architectural models, placing drawings in smaller rooms, concerned that large work in passageways would appear crowded and uneven and that rooms without volume would seem empty. I’ve since come around to the calmness of the bays, the images and small wall-mounted models presented within give retreat and respite from the natural busyness of an exhibition featuring the work of 45 people. They provide a space to duck into, out of the fray. Similarly, the curatorial decision to use labels that included not only name and title, but also biography and project description next to each exhibitor’s work also went against my gut. I wanted the work to speak for itself, be revealed with time and thought rather than through explanatory text. However, as we printed, sized, edited, hung and re-edited the labels I realized that unlike the lengthy text that can dilute the potency of a work of art, these labels were a boon to the projects they described. At 100 words a pop the wall panels read quickly, provide a bit of background on the makers and their practice; some further explain process and how students arrived at the final iteration, others explain technical elements of the work or give guidance of how thing or spaces could be used; some labels say very little.

As a curatorial fellow, and a similarly graduating student, Tele vision was as much of a learning experience for me as for those in the exhibition. Together we worked out ideas, wrote and rewrote biographies and project statements, placed and replaced drawings, diagrams and objects on walls, books and models on pedestals, even sat under a desk while a video camera captured the action above. This process was wholly different from other graduate exhibitions with which I’ve been involved; those shows consisted of MFA work and the exhibition and display of design and architecture is an entirely different entity. With Tele vision as the final curatorial project of my graduate career I write this brief essay hopefully for the service of those reading it and visiting the exhibition, but also for myself. With always-necessary critical distance I’m able to see my own process, evaluate it’s strengths and weaknesses and adjust accordingly for the next project. Like those exhibiting in Tele vision, I too rely on process to show me where I’ve been – and where I hope to go.

Morgan Walsh is a recent dual-MA graduate from The School of the Art Institute. She served as a curatorial fellow for Tele Vision, on view until July 21, 2012.

African-American Pictographic Kirkwood Plantation Desk/SecretaryMississippi, c. 1870syellow pine and "found" wood with over 50 applied relief carvings including Masonic iconography and various tools and utensils from daily plantation lifeThis desk/secretary represents a remarkable example of African-American vernacular furniture. According to tradition, this desk was made by William "Willie" Howard, the favored slave of Mississippi Governor McWillie and his wife Catherine, of Kirkwood Plantation, Madison County, Mississippi.65 x 44.5 x 24Ricco/Maresca Gallery, New York NY

The Metro Show NYC

Wednesday, January 18 and runs through Sunday, January 22, 2012

With a robust roster of new and returning exhibitors, the inaugural Metro Show leaps onto the art fair circuit with a group of highly acclaimed fine and decorative arts specialists. The show opens on Wednesday, January 18 and runs through Sunday, January 22, 2012 at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, in New York's Chelsea arts district.

Among the fair's newcomers in the field of 20th-century fine art and/or design are the New York galleries Barry Friedman Ltd., Cavin-Morris Gallery, Galerie St. Etienne, and Schillay Fine Art; Syracuse-based Dalton's American Decorative Arts offering American Arts and Crafts; Santa Fe's ethnographic specialist William Siegal Gallery; Chicago-based Worthington Gallery, which features European naïves, Der Blaue Reiter, and Bauhaus paintings, drawings and sculpture; the San Francisco-based tribal specialist B.C. Dentan; Joel Cooner Gallery, from Dallas, specialists in oceanic, tribal, pre-Columbian, Asian and ancient artworks; and from Japan,Yukiko Koide Presents, with turn of the century Japanese woodblock prints.

"We are delighted to welcome these outstanding dealers to the Metro Show," said Show Director Caroline Kerrigan Lerch. "Their diversity expands upon the core group of original dealers from the former American Antiques Show."

"The Metro Show reflects the new attitude toward collecting in which a work is valued for its intrinsic qualities and the beauty of its design - not solely for its place in the historical continuum," said Lerch. "When visitors walk through the entrance, they will see the connections linking historic and contemporary arts and design in all its forms - whether it's pre-Columbian textiles, visionary paintings, Asian art, mid-20th-century studio design, Native American material, anonymous folk art or formal furniture."

With this in mind, The Art Fair Company invited interior designer Anthony Baratta, who is known for his signature look of bold and colorful patterns, to collaborate with video installation artist Sean Capone to create the mise-en-scène for the Metro Show. "Tony and Sean have been given the edict to create something provocative and unexpected," added Lerch.

In addition, a committee of prominent interior designers and collectors has been formed. Mario Buatta, Anthony Baratta, Ellie Cullman, Jamie Drake, Maureen Footer, Thomas Jayne, and Miles Redd will co-chair the Metro Show Collectors Circle.

Opening Night Preview

The Opening Night is Wednesday, January 18 and will begin with a by invitation only VIP Preview from 6 - 7 pm. The Public Preview will begin at 7 pm. Tickets for the Public Preview are $75 and will be available online or at the door. Both previews continue until 9 pm.

General Admission The show opens to the public on Thursday, January 19. Hours are Thursday, January 19: 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM; Friday, January 20: 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM; Saturday, January 21: 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM; Sunday, January 22: 12 noon - 5:30 pm. General admission is $15 per person; a multi-day pass is $30 per person.

About The Art Fair Company The Art Fair Company, founded by Michael Franks, the former COO of dmg world media, and Mark Lyman, Founding Director of the Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fairs (SOFA), now produces SOFA fairs in Chicago, New York and Santa Fe, the leading contemporary decorative art and design fairs in the world. They also produce The Intuit Outsider and Folk Art Fair, in Chicago and Santa Fe. The company also provides professional promotional and operational support to other art and antique fair producers

Rob Mason and Gary Shaw do a field test to determine how Seqenenre, the Warrior King, died

Psst.... Uncover the Untold Stories of Objects on Museum Secrets TV

Interview with Steve Gamester and David Oppenheim

By Natalie Fasano

Although the museum experience is undoubtedly one best had in person, the “Museum Secrets” television team does a good job of bringing interesting objects into the homes of those less inclined, or unable to spring for a cultural excursion abroad.

“Museum Secrets,” the Canadian television series produced by Kensington in Toronto, features six objects—both iconic and lesser known— from eight museums around the world: The Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Vatican, The Cairo Museum, The Natural History Museum in London, and the Royal Ontario Museum. Although the program is not yet broadcast outside of Canada those interested in uncovering the mysterious lives of these objects can view the series using their interactive website, www.museumsecrets.tv,

The series producer, Steve Gamester, as well as Visual Producer, David Oppenheim, sat down with The Curated Object to determine what makes a good museum documentary: where do you start, when asked to choose six objects from millions?

Museum Secrets provides its audience with an in-depth look into six unique objects from among the world’s most notable museums. How did you select the objects to be featured in the show? Did you work closely with museum directors and curators, or did you approach them prepared with a “wish list?”

SG: This was one of our biggest challenges. Larger museums have millions of objects; of course, one million of those are sometimes bug specimens. We developed a bit of a method. We asked: What are the icons?

Did museum politics dictate certain aspects of the final cut?

SG: It was less to do with politics. Things we couldn’t get, it was because it wasn’t practical. Either it was on tour, being restored, or there were issues with copyright.

DO: It’s really about working with them [museums] and their collections. It’s obviously tricky to balance everything out, between the smart storytelling we do so well and the physical experience, making sure one doesn’t detract from the other.

Your online platform provides an international audience with the opportunity to virtually experience featured Museums and objects. How has your audience outside of Canada responded to the website?

DO: We created a site that works if you have seen the show, or haven’t. There’s a luxury of what we’re able to do on the web that we can’t in an hour-long episode. We can comb through the stuff, make it interesting, and put it online.

What have you learned about the Museum-going community at large, as you study user interaction with the site?

SG: Well, the numbers have been higher than anyone expected. In the back of your mind, you think ‘the last year and a half of my life might not end the way I wanted it to.’ I used to work for History Television in Canada. After 8 years of looking at ratings, I learned why some very good shows simply aren’t big hits.

How is “Museum Secrets” different; how did you envision a ‘very good show” that also had mass appeal?

SG: The word ‘Museum’ in a show scared a lot of people. People think ‘museum’ and they think: ‘boring.’ We have been one of the top rated news shows on the channel this year because we aren’t comprehensive—where do you start with a gigantic museum like the Met or the Louvre? We simply pick interesting objects, give them and keep the stories lively and interesting…keep them moving.

Cairo, London, Paris, New York, Toronto and Rome. You have described Museums and libraries as the original “repositories for World culture,” before the dawn of the Digital Age. What do you think of audio guides; do these and other digital supplements detract from, or enrich, the individual experience with history?

SG: I think it’s nice to approach objects first, look at them, and try to figure them out. I like information; I’m more history than art history focused: how do objects connect to great themes or trends? Audio guides are more from an art history perspective. I personally would like to see more storytelling. I like some of the thematic tours, which link several objects together into one story; again, museums have so many things to see, it can be overwhelming. I like the idea of packages tailored to individual interests.

Were there any cities that you had never visited before? What can a museum tell us about current cultural trends in major cities, when considering their curatorial focus/historical agenda?

SG: I had never been to Cairo or London, but visited each museum in advance of filming. The most explicit case was Egypt. Most of the street battles occurred in front of the museum. The corner where they were throwing Molotov cocktails was the corner of the museum where the Royal Mummy Room is. Mummies burn rather quickly, and they were meters away.

What sort of cultural agenda was pushed on-site in Cairo?

SG: I did sense that we weren’t getting anywhere without the support of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Zahi Awass, the Minister of State, was promoted by Mubarak [in his last days]. He was a renowned archaeologist, legit. But he clearly had an agenda, to project Egypt in a certain way—as a great civilization. He was on a very public campaign to have certain objects repatriated; for example, the Bust of Nefertiti in Berlin, and the Rosetta Stone in London. He was trying to right the wrongs of the colonial era.

Has anyone contacted you since the coup-d’état that ended Mubarak’s thirty-year incumbency?

SG: A lot of people helped us on the ground. Our hotel was right across from the museum. Of course, I’ve been wondering how they’re all doing.

Was there any object you wanted to cover in your series but couldn’t? Perhaps something you find personally fascinating but not enticing enough to a global audience?

SG: There was one at the Met, from the Weegee photography collection. He was a famous crime photographer in New York in the 30’s and 40’s. He got his nickname he always showed up at a scene before police—they said he must have had an “Ouija” board; he had a police radio in his car. He did all of these fantastic photos, very ‘film noir:’ detectives in trench coats and fedoras. One in particular, “Cake box and Severed Head…” you can’t help but look at it and wonder what the heck happened. In the end, there were copyright issues. That was a real shame; it was a great detective story. We found an amazing guy from the Lower East Side who wrote a book on the period…he would have been a great interview.

DO: There’s always more you’d like to get.

Where do you go from here? How has this experience inspired you on a professional level; do you have similar projects in mind?

SG: We have been renewed for another season, eight new museums. People are fascinated with “behind the scenes” coverage—storage rooms, conservation labs. The objects we choose aren’t typical; a lot aren’t on display. One, a bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci to span the Great Horn, is being built now. Engineers dug up the plans, and are using them to build.

How can Museums make the “user experience” more approachable. What can these repositories of culture do to get people off the computer, and to convince them that the real experience is inside?

You can see tons of documentaries, but there is really no substitution for seeing these things with your own eyes.

Making It: Challenges facing the American designer February 17, 2011, 7:00pm $12 General, $10 MAD Members and Students with Valid ID

It's no surprise that Jen Renzi, one of the wunderkinds of all-things design, is hosting this candid, sincere, and important discussion about American design. Paired with Alissia Melka-Teichroew, Jonah Takagi, and BDDW’s Tyler Hays (all featured on her blog for FastCompany, Co.Design ), this is a conversation not to be missed! And bring your friends... they will thank you.

“ The media transforms the great silence of things into its opposite. Formerly constituting a secret, the real now talks constantly. News reports, information, statistics, and surveys are everywhere” – Michel de Certeau

"The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field, to re-examine evidence and assumptions, to shake up habitual ways of working and thinking, to dissipate conventional familiarities, to re-evaluate rules and institutions and to participate in the formation of a political will (where he has his role as citizen to play)" Michel Foucault

“'I don't write a book so that it will be the final word; I write a book so that other books are possible, not necessarily written by me'” Michel Foucault

Catapulting the conversation about design away from coy jabs, products to market and the irritating perils of overenthusiastic Price-is-Right editorial politeness, Ellen and Julia Luptons’ Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things is an act of resistance and optimism.

The brilliance of their book is simple: it has courage, not bravado. It’s courageousness lies in their willingness to offer a critique of objects and the choices that surround them. “Design is about critical thinking… design is creative thinking,” muse the authors. Indeed. Joining a small but growing body of writers that are willing to publicly evaluate and critique objects, they avoid the Scylla of snarky, ad hominum criticism and the Charybdis of pages of uncritical appraisal (both often very tempting pitfalls).

Janus-faced, American consumers are smitten with both the promise of the practical and the illusory vehicle of escape. Objects, linked intimately with desire, pointedly sit (and sometimes even scream) in the midst of a public that has seemingly few vehicles to critically navigate this terrain. In terms of critical theory, thinking about objects also often means revealing how, while inundated with mediums for selling lifestyles and marketing voices, we often lack vocabularies for understanding those objects’ consumption/production and our psychic relationships with them. Of course, objects can and do resist the static nature of falling firmly into either the vocabularies of consumption or of critical analysis - two spheres that rarely seriously engage, preferring to dismiss one another with terms like ‘pedantic’ and ‘academic’ or, in turn, ‘lightweight,’ 'consumer' or ‘lowbrow.’

In the design world, this division is especially dubious, although its hovering presence is often ignored or consciously denied. Public discussions regarding objects become uncritical appraisals, collections of images representing a lifestyle to market or parts of a consumer report rooted in buying patterns, statistics or provenance.

Resisting both the intellectual and lifestyle pose, in Design Your Life the Luptons’ democratic spirit is sincere in its quest. Adhering to a narrative voice marked with clarity and wit, the book is striking because the essays speak to one another to offer a dialogue—with the sincere presumption that the reader will interact and respond. The authors ask readers to empower themselves by asking difficult questions: ‘Why do I choose to live with the things that I do?’ ‘Why should I want this instead of that?’ And, most importantly, ‘What does it mean to design my life? Or, what does my life design?’

Short genealogies and observations of objects—the toaster, rolling luggage, the table, even business cards—dance among graphics and typeface that stimulate and illustrate ideas, instead of selling them. Judgments—such as “good object, bad behavior” in the case of rolling luggage—or even a quick delve into the psychology of toilet paper dare to examine objects and offer an honest and unabashed evaluation. More pointed is the authors’ evaluation of furniture groupings, which asks: “What about households who would rather be miserable—or who gather together under threat of punishment?” Answers appear in the form of arrangements/chapters appropriately termed “The Distant Father” and “The Overbearing Mother,” both of which point out the social, psychic, economic and even gendered nature of space. The author’s voices suggest that readers relax, not in order to tune out and embark on an escapade, but rather to open up a pathway for thinking—and the pleasure that ought to accompany thinking critically and creatively about one’s life.

The absence of photography is a vocal omission. Without the eye of the lens to create a reality for an object, person or environment, the reader/viewer engages, instead, with Ellen Lupton’s illustrations. With the materiality of a painter’s brushstrokes and a graphic designer’s clarity of form, the illustrations are companions on a journey, not seducers. Oddly enough, the images seem more nuanced because they illustrate how the axis of power from which we make choices and record and recollect our own histories lies between fiction and reality; how we produce them in ways that never completely line up with what we call “reality,” afterwards.

Still, more compelling are the humorous narratives (just note the chapter titles: “Objectile Dysfunction,” “The Sex Life of Flowers,” and “Are Toasters Necessary?”) navigating human activities: charitable giving, gift-giving, organization, even the politics of food, with a delicious essay that describes how “baby carrots are made, not born.” As the authors suggest, the place between pleasure and peril is a space where creativity and the possibility of alternative visions emerge.

Empowerment, in this volume, is the ability to proffer a vision of life with a discerning mind, cognoscent of one’s own motivations and the social sphere that informs the ways in which those judgment are derived. In the book’s final pages, definitive suggestions for weblogs and even the making of manifestos ask readers to become active participants that have the critical capacity to own their decisions…not just their chairs- Joanne Molina

Curating Contemporary Mosaic Art NOW & An Interview with the Inimitable Ellen Blakeley

By Natalie Fasano

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” -- Anais Nin

Often used as a metaphor for the many tenets of life and multidimensional nature of those who make it dynamic, "mosaic" is a cipher for the constance of abundance and grace resulting from the productive tension that creates the collectivity of blossoming form and the individual of each fragment that sustains it. It is an art that consciously reveals the dynamic of art itself.

For centuries this ancient art has offered us the archeological lightening strikes that have allowed us to peer into the domestic and public spaces of civilizations, foreign and familiar. Catering to the faculty of the imagination, these ancient symbols of civilization linger at the crossroads of fiction and history.

But what does it mean to consider the mosaic while standing our contemporary cultural landscape where the moving image, and the excessive dominance of the image, is at the height of its reign? Frustrated with being historically marginalized as “craftsmen,” mosaic artists have worked tirelessly at assimilation—to transition from crafts to arts. Yes, flat, one-dimensional arrangements of colored tiles on the surfaces of infinity pools, guest bathrooms and posh saunas are, in essence, mosaics. They are not, however, indicative of the movement as an art form. To consider the contemporary mosaic almost necessitates a reconsideration of the vehicle of exhibition itself -- and that is what “Exhibition in Print: Mosaic Art NOW" and its Best in Show winner, mosaic artistEllen Blakeley have accomplished. The modern movement to reestablish mosaic art has found its voice in guest editor and judge Dr. Scott Shields, Associate Director and Chief Curator for the Crocker Museum, and Bill Buckingham and Nancie Mills Pipgras, editors of“Exhibition in Print: Mosaic Art NOW”

A print exhibit as well as a “mosaic manifesto,”Mosaic Art NOW’s third annual edition, published in May of this year, features eighteen international mosaic artists, selected from hundreds of submissions, that best illustrate mosaic art as a contemporary form. From the eighteen, Pipgras and her guest judges selected a winner—Ellen Blakeley, of San Franciso California. Her piece “Meredith,” a three-dimensional mosaic made from a hollowed piece of oak, is a rather startling example of mosaic versatility, in form, dimension, texture and technique. ”Meredith” is the first in Blakeley’s ongoing series of mosaics on oak. Her recent works, including “Meredith,” will be featured among similar, contemporary mosaic talents, onJuly 20, 2010 at the 555 California Concourse Gallery in San Francisco. “Contemporary Mosaic Art: An Exquisite Collection” will continue MAN’s mission of mosaic assimilation, from the page to the park.

Dr. Shields described the selected artists as those who “added to the mosaic tradition and pushed its boundaries [making evident] that the art form is alive and well.” Shields' philosophy is one rooted in the affective quality of art—art, as Horace famously said, for art’s sake. “People can look at a Picasso and like it, because it is Picasso,” Dr. Shields explained. “It’s great that they know that, but I also think that people should also respond to art for what it is, rather than simply who it’s by.”

Ellen Blakeley’s work best exemplifies the relationship between the mosaic artist, or “scavenger,” and resulting work, or beneficiary of opportunity. In San Francisco, during the early 90's, a group of B.B. gun wielding vandals provided her with piles of free glass, from blown out bus windows. Her award-winning recovered oak sculptures, “Meredith,” being the first, were conceived of in a similarly lucky encounter—walking her dogs one morning, Blakeley came across a three-year dead, and perfectly pliable, silver oak tree. Blakely’s works are the products of serendipitous encounters in her natural environment, an aesthetic that won her a valuable commission last year from the Rockwell Group, designers of the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. The Mohegan tribe wanted to showcase 95 glass panels in the casino atrium, and each pane embellished with the tribe’s distinctive medicinal leaves.

Although she thanks no tangible God, Blakeley continually offers words of respect both of and to an indeterminate, natural force that both directs her artistic vision and provides the raw material for their realization. At The Curated Object, we offer similar words of gratitude to her for granting us an interview:

To start, I understand that your work with glass began rather haphazardly, with recovered fragments from blown out bus windows. Is this true?

In San Francisco, I was living as a single mom just trying to make ends meet. I saw piles of broken glass everywhere. There were articles in the newspaper; people thought it was bizarre. Evidently, local teen boys had figured out that shooting glass windows with b.b. guns made them explode, like in an action movie. Because artists are scavengers by nature, I saw this glass as beautiful, free material. I picked up 5lbs one day and began to play with it.

Were your initial attempts to work with the raw glass successful?

The glass I recovered was boring, coke bottle green. I began by painting a board white and gluing glass to it. A few days later, I splashed some light colors on the board and applied the glass with clear glue. This was my light bulb breakthrough. Most mosaic artists are stuck with someone else’s color choices—they smash plates, use broken tiles. I began to paint my own backgrounds—I see myself as a painter, using glass as “color.”

You describe yourself as a creator of functional art—your winning piece appeared more sculptural than functional.

I started by making art objects and house-ware, mostly mirror frames. They started to sell like hotcakes; I couldn’t make them fast enough. The design world runs on new— new is God. I was really lucky to be in san Francisco when all the vandalism was going on. It was the right place at right time. I was smart enough to recognize something totally cool. I’m tenacious, and I didn’t give up.

What materials work best with glass? What are you most fond of using in your pieces?

I’m only limited by imagination. I use paint, metallic powders, newspaper, fabric, butterfly wings. If it’s flat, and not too thick, I can apply it underneath [the glass]. I just treat the glass with a clear apoxy and laminate it to a piece of wood, like in my bark pieces.

How do you approach your role in the art world—are you a business woman, an artist, or can you be both?

My heart is the heart of an artist, but I run a tile business. The artist gets to come out as often as I free up time for her to make art. My business is super busy at the moment, and you have to strike while the iron is hot in this economy. I have 11 jobs on my board and an accordion crew, about 6 “glassers” on call. Some are students, moms looking to make more money during day. I pay by the piece instead of by hour, so it’s good incentive for them to be fast and accurate. I guess I’m running a really cool sweatshop.

Though you do run a successful tile business, your bark sculptures are anything but functional. Out of 305 entries from an international pool of mosaic artists, your piece was name winner of the first annual Mosaic Art Now Exhibition in Print. You appear to have found some time, then, to work as an artist. How did you discover your first piece of salvageable wood?

I live an hour north of San Francisco, and walk my dogs in the vineyards every day. I always walked by this fallen oak tree; a neighbor told me it had been down at least three years. You can’t just pull bark off a tree, it’s like pulling someone’s skin off—you can’t do it. Again, I was in the right place right time. I kept noticing on my walks these beautiful, weird shapes of bark shedding off of the trunk. One day, I took some home. One piece was totally flat, and I thought: “Oh, I could glass this.”

You have cited that artists are, by nature, scavengers. Your artistic process seems predominantly circumstantial. What are the thought processes that determine what to do, or make of, a certain material—oak, for example?

I’m a visionary, but not in a religious sense. I see visions and try to make them. I thought that it would be cool if, when I cut open a tree, it was filled with jewels, if that were how god made it or whatever. I am not trying to imitate nature, but felt that I was paying my respects. Whatever I do on the inside of bark pieces is only me paying my respects to the ultimate artist, whoever made this.

What is your ideal project in the future?

I’d love to really explore big projects with other architectural firms—creating windows, lighting. Also floor inlays; we just did an 8ft medallion for a private residence in Florida. My work looks too delicate to be used as flooring, but its tough as nails. It doesn’t scratch it just glitters. [As for the bark], Well, I just got a beautiful piece of cherry. It looks like silver on the outside—who knows where I’ll go.

To order your addition of Mosaic Art NOW and to contact Ellen Blakely:

London’s Portobello Road and Le marché aux Puces de St-Ouen in Paris – Europe’s most established antique markets – might have taken a graceful stance if only with a slight hint of envy as Chicago’s 13th International Antiques Fair – part of the greater annual arts happening Artropolis – dazzled last weekend at Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, featuring a vast – if not overwhelming – collection of stunning antique and antique-inspired objects presented by over a hundred of world’s most elite galleries specializing in antiques.

Epochs crossed and history unfolded as Chicago’s major blue chip antique extravaganza exposed a grand scope of categories and genres including sculpture, ethnic arts, jewelry, ceramics, paintings, decorative arts, 20th century design, and much more. Many dealers at the fair attempted to recreate the interior space of their elegant antique boutiques in New York, Chicago, Miami, London and Paris by upholstering the booths in sophisticated fabrics and adding dramatic lighting. In many instances, the result of these instant interior makeovers was successful, however some of the booths looked somewhat overdone, a bit exaggerated, even kitschy – an obvious consequence of the tight timelines and the craving to attract higher traffic.

On a different note, the objects – the ones mentally selected and snapped by the swirling mind and eye moving in tantivy through the fair isles – truly stunned. Even the most elegant of visitors could have found an object to suffice their aesthetic predilections for….. A walking cane? Absolutely! A symbol of power in the Middle Ages and a class privilege in the 1700s onwards, a fine cane is still considered de rigueur today. A unique collection of antique walking canes presented at the fair by London’s Great Canes gallery was every gentleman’s grand reverie come true. Their selection encompassed different historical periods: the 17th century sticks of early English pique work with ivory knobs mounted on a chased silver band on a Malacca cane with long ferrule; the 18th century sword stick topped with carved ivory knob decorated with leaves and a red jewel crowning the knob carried bi-functionality in the 1790, serving as a walking cane as well as a defensive mechanism with the cane’s top pulling away from the shaft to reveal an engraved blade.

Or the 19th century cane topped with carved ivory knob in a shape of a hound jeweled with rubies, sapphires and a diamond set in gold? A true legend, the noble 19th century cane is part of the personal collection of France’s Baron Alexis de Redé. The collection is placed at the Hotel Lambert – de Redé’s Paris residence situated on the isle de St. Louis on the Seine, later bought in its entirety by de Redé and Baron Guy de Rothschild.

Dating back to 1920s, a divine Art Deco dress cane embodies the best of the period – the square black section is sleek and elegant, whereas the top is chicly adorned with silver ivory and gold creating a magnificent effect.

If the gentleman visitor happened to be accompanying a dame at the fair, she would have been equally stunned by some of the vintage and couture jewelry pieces, such as the ones featured at the show by Deco Deluxe New York. The gallery’s owner, legendary antiques dealer and interior decorator New Yorker Sandi Berman, specializes in showcasing various couture jewelry pieces originating in the 1960s – 2000s. Necklaces and bracelets by Donna Karan, Karl Lagerfeld, Deanna Hamro, Iradj Moini, and Herve van der Straeten “incorporate geometric shapes of varying dimensionality reflecting my preference for architectural, modern jewelry and objects, bringing these pieces into the area of art,” Berman reflects on her taste and the featured objects that not only reveal her passion for modernity, but also the versatility of modern pieces designed to reflect various historical periods.

Made of gunmetal, the necklace by Donna Karan consists of several geometrical spheres all intertwined on a leather strap creating an ultra contemporary, urban avant-garde feel, whereas Karl Lagerfeld’s conical lucite necklace on sterling silver links designed for Sobral is light and vibrant – the transparency of the cones imbibing the surrounding colors.

Deanna Hamro’s intricate weaving pattern of the gold tone cuff with crystals and onyx and an aristocratic looking brooch by Iradj Moini with pearls and crystals in silver wire are reminiscent of the royal jewelry pieces that could have belonged to the Duchess of Edinburgh, or the family of Tsar Nicholas the II.

The design of the striking Herve van der Straeten’s three-disc gold-toned neckpiece incorporates ancient Egyptian jewelry worn by the pharaohs and the enigmatic Queen Nefertiti. However, ornamentation – characteristic of the neckpieces in ancient Egypt – is lacking in this jewelry piece, and its simplicity of form makes the piece look very present-day.

The mid-century neoclassical oversized black and white chairs adorned the booth space – the visitor could almost see Johann J. Winckelmann sitting on one of the chairs, pondering upon his own famous phrase that the most important elements of classical art were “noble simplicity and calm grandeur.” The phrase seems to have been widely adopted and realized by the contemporary aesthetic vision. And that is what Sandi Berman has masterfully achieved.

Franco and Fabienne Cosulich of Cosulich Interiors and Antiques have worked and developed the “Art in Homes” concept, carefully selecting one-of-a-kind pieces embodying innovative design, functionality and craftsmanship of the highest skill, and combining these pieces with exceptional Murano glass lighting objects to create an artistically inspiring atmosphere of a home. After all, their refined and a brilliant eye for magnificent decorative objects belong to their roots: Franco Cosulich spent his childhood in Ethiopia, Brazil and Argentina – the experience that has had a great effect on his creative vision, later developing into a passion for exclusive antique objects, each telling a unique story. Having owned an established antiques shop near Florence in Italy, Franco then lived in the United Kingdom over a decade, exhibiting at major UK’s antiques fairs – much of his clientele coming from the United States.

Daughter of the internationally renowned Italian inventor and designer Luciano Mattioli, Paris-born Fabienne Cosulich was greatly influenced by her mother’s professional experience in Parisian antiques, and later devoted much of her time to researching “unique techniques in the creation and production of Objets d'Art,” as well as finding a more innovative approach towards styling the interior space of a home.

The ability of the couple to adapt and their openness to new styles and new markets brought them to New York, where the couple has been living since 2007.

“We moved from Europe to the States because we fell in love with the uniqueness and sense of place you feel in New York, the exact ideal place where our collection is at home”, says Fabienne. The couple’s profound knowledge of various cultures and the international scene enables them to buy exceptional pieces – Venetian lighting and Venetian furniture of unique designs – from famous Italian Villas and private French Chateaux. Made exclusively of Murano glass, the lighting pieces and cabinets featured at the antiques fair incorporate the craftsmanship of the medieval artisans and a softer, sleeker design.

Decorated with high quality leaves and scrolls in Murano glass, the 1970s Venetian glass wall sconce exudes quiet sophistication – its subtle, understated colors bringing a noble, more modern tone in. A Venetian wall light created by Barovier & Toso in the 1970s with textured handcrafted Murano white glass disks of various sizes and finish has an ethereal quality characteristic of many contemporary lighting pieces. That quality comes from the island of Murano – the place of mystery and marvel – where the company Barovier & Torso has been making their glass collections since 1295.

A 1960s commission-made red Venetian Murano glass floor lamp embodies a unique, up-to-date design, created in a rare color, and a custom made Venetian glass table lamp was made utilizing a technique called “avventurina” that uses copper inside the glass requiring the highest expertise to result in a decorative pattern. “This type of lamps with decorative leafs and flowers are very exclusive and hard to find because they are created in very limited numbers and only few of them become available on the market,” says Fabienne Cosulich.

Focusing on Biedermeier furniture of the mid-19th century and Empire furniture originating in the beginning of the 19th century, Chicago’s premiere Biedermeier antique dealer Rita Bucheit features exceptional museum quality antiques from Austria. Chic, smart and innovative objects of Vienna Succession circa 1900 and the Art Deco furniture of the 1920s and 1930s “are added to compliment Biedermeier’s warmth and subtlety”, the owner remarks. With the stores in Chicago and Vienna, Rita Bucheit’s antique pieces are included in the permanent museum collections throughout the United States.

In the 19th century Biedermeier flourished as a multidisciplinary concept encompassing literature, music, visual arts and furniture between 1815 and 1848 – the period of many changes that followed the end of Napoleonic Wars. Conservative politics took the lead as a reaction against the horrors of the French Revolution, and Liberalism was suppressed as a consequence. During that time comfortable furnishings utilizing modest fabrics appeared embodying effortless design that suited the needs of the people in a time of little wealth following the Napoleonic Wars. Biedermeier style was a simplified modernized version of the French Empire style, and was elegant in its practical simplicity. Vienna was the place of great creativity at the time with music, theatre and literary scenes thriving, so the city was powerful enough to unite and harmonize the most multifarious motives into its own synthesis.

The person behind Design Feast, one of the best resources on design and the arts, Nate Burgos, very kindly agreed to an interview with The Curated Object. We were humbled by his intellectual rigor and ability to speak about the interdisciplinary nature of design.

Why did you enter the field of graphic design?

I’ve been saying that I arrived at graphic design through architecture—a field I never took a course in, but has always captured my interest. There’s something about making space nested in space. How I majored in graphic design is something I’ll keep post-rationalizing over; there were a number of factors. Besides the aspiration for architecture, there were the parts played by the art and design foundation program during my undergrad years, curiosity about graphic design as well as computers, and compliance with a paper trail toward declaring a major. My current role happens to be that of information architect. I ultimately reunited with a version of architecture.

What is your biggest challenge and why?

There’s a lot of challenges that I’ll keep facing. Discovering as much as possible is a big one. There are so many fascinating people, places and things. A trite triad but loaded with connections that beget connections. Design is only one source, but it’s a rich world to encounter and connect: ideas and perspectives, the natural and the artificial, ways of seeing and ways of talking. There’s a term in musical notation called legato, Italian for “tied together,” which aims to achieve a smooth-and-connected effect. Being a legato interloper is very challenging, as every deposit of discovery coincides in a deficit of discovery.

What has been your most meaningful project and why?

This reminds me of a panel discussion at a Living Surfaces Conference, formerly held by the defunct American Center for Design. When asked for professional advice, one of the panel participants, an interactive designer whose name I forgot, responded, “Work on cool projects.” This was quickly argued by Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, who emphasized, “Whaddaya mean by ‘cool’? Designers must deem all projects as cool.” Something like this. What Norman stressed was designing without prejudice.

When industrial designer Matali Crasset was asked, “Is there one thing you would love to design?” Her answer was “No, I never work or think like that. Because what people propose to me is much more interesting than what I might have thought about designing at any time. I’m happy to just float from one proposal to another. It’s nice, I really like that. It’s not that I don't have a dream but I really am more interested in meeting people, finding new partners to go further with, to stretch the possibilities that are out there.”

If a project—from a stamp to a building, whatever the industry—is approached like a mystery box, who knows what can be discovered, what information can be gained, what meaning can be achieved, what stimulation can captivate an audience. That’s the cool factor. Designing is helping. All my projects are meaningful.

What is the most difficult part of communicating with people through design?

Describing how an idea was conceived, how a project originated, how the result was made—anything—demands clarity. This was a moving target in a recent lecture I did. Telling a story in a legato manner is another big challenge. Communicating about/with design is game for waxing philosophical, as long as the pontificating is grounded, complemented, by what’s practical. In an interview about topics related to design management, educator Ralph Beuker thinks that designers should explain more and justify less. Doing both “with feeling,” and effectively, is the daily challenge.

How has the field changed in the past five years?

The inputs have multiplied a lot. The notebook remains a steadfast companion to capture and contain as many whims and whiffs as much as possible of who or what has made one look, and even smile. Design researchers Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg practice and encourage “noticing power.” This power has intensified to cope with a relentless information landscape.

From interviewee’s rare book collection

What people, places and ideas inspire your process?

Designer and author Paul Rand summarized that “Design is everything. Everything.” A friend of mine disagrees, which made me wonder if design is truly everything. Graphic designer Milton Glaser who just reached his 80th birthday, said that design “is going from an existing position to a preferred one. It’s everything.” I’ve been going back and forth and will continue toggling about design’s importance. But it’s a healthy pondering, a cyclical one. Everything inspires me, at the moment.

Who has been the most influential graphic designer in your life? Why?

Life, family and loved ones constitute the most impact on me. The urbanist Jane Jacobs said, “Design is people.” Those in my circle are major in how I work. Designing is taking care of the roots. I’m blessed to have been taught by designers like John Massey, Paul Rand and Armin Hofmann. I keep learning from them. But the people with closest proximity to me exercise the highest influence on my thinking and practice as a designer. They’re my teachers wherever I am.

What do you think the relationship between art and graphic design is? In general, and also in your work?

I like how designer Andy Rutledge put it, “While design uses the very same fundamentals as artistry, these are two separate endeavors. The difference between them would seem to be slight or negligible, but again, what seems is not often what is.

In art, the artist has the freedom to define the message, the content, and the context. The artist may not choose to exert influence over all of these elements, but the choice is there nonetheless.

In design, one or more of these elements (message, content, and context) is defined for us. These are known as constraints. Artistry in the context of constraint is design, plain and simple.”

Rutledge marks the inheritance—message, content, and context—that designers engage. And it’s not an inheritance to lather on one’s self-serving intentions. Charles Eames said that “Design mostly depends on constraints.” Handling constraints breeds restraint. Finding that appropriate fidelity of restraint is key, yet never easy to me.

Designed by Atelier Carvalho Bernau

What about the relationship between objects and graphic design?

A timely question because I discovered Atelier Carvalho Bernau, an independent studio in The Hague. From their website, “As graphic designers, we develop objects: We are concerned with every aspect of, for example, a book: from the choice of format to the paper and inks used for the printing, or even the glue used for the binding—because they all influence each other. We see our practise as holistic because we are not solely concerned with the ordering of, and navigation within, materials: we also direct an orchestra of skilled professionals, which include paper manufacturers, photographers, lithographers, printers and binders. Together, we work on creating an object, a perfect vessel for its content.” They go on to proclaim, “We are always intrigued by objects, that while perfectly serving their purpose, also tell a story about the object itself: We try to make each book, poster or typeface also an enquiry into the nature of books, posters and typefaces, an exploration of the basic concepts of these objects, and a reflection of the present state of our ever-ongoing quest for that essence.”

Objects are frozen moments that melt and reshape as their stories are told; they mark the pursuit of something in agitation. And each object entails a unique story of making. The act of making is a story that must be re-earned over and over again. Practice makes perfect, “a perfect vessel for its content” as Atelier Carvalho Bernau put it. Growing a portfolio of work is more than adding another badge of completion. Graphic artist Richard Sarson, who creates complex visual work with simple means like his Circle Project, was asked, “What motivates you to create; to keep pushing forward?” His answer was eloquent, “The fact that I don’t really know what I am doing or why I am doing it. Keeping going means working towards an answer to those questions.”

I reflect on the array of pots, with plants, that my father gave me. They remind me to keep going, and hopefully grow a satisfying passage of time. Another thing that my father gave me was this quote:

“It’s not the object. It’s the emptiness.”

My father discovered it as part of an interior design ad. It speaks to the constant interplay of foreground, background, middle ground and surround-ground. It’s close to what architect Eero Saarinen advised:

“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”

Objects compel zooming in and out, where the former is the object itself, and its stage is the “larger context.” Both exploit the emptiness. It’s the Buddhist belief, which I recently discovered, that “The greatest medicine is the emptiness of everything.” Objects are curated but also curative.

What do you think the field will look like in another 10 years? Why?

I don’t know. At an All Things Digital conference, Steve Jobs was asked what the information technology industry would look like in five years, what would be the next big thing. His projection was, “I don’t know. And the reason I don’t know is because I wouldn’t have thought that there would have been maps on it [phone] five years ago… .”

All I know is what’s going on as I write, and I’ve been noticing that writing is becoming more formalized as a method to design and designing. There’s the MA Design Writing Criticism course in London and MFA in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts, New York. Group All Day Buffet, an “incubator for social innovation,” is seeking writers for its new venture. Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism has a scholarship program that reaches out to programmers/developers. Alissa Walker teaches a course called “Breaking into Design Journalism.” Whoever described words as the best natural resource was right. It’s terrific to see the momentum of the design prosateur.

What do you think some of the biggest misconceptions about your field?

What the audience experiences is an interface, which comes in all shapes and sizes. The interface may appear seamless and effortless, but there’s a lot of work and decisions—effort—behind it.

Tell us why you decided to start Design Feast—such a massive and important project?

Design Feast started in 1999 as a way to collect and share pointers to interesting online—hopefully leading to offline—content, not only about one design discipline but the whole family of disciplines. Not group, not cluster—Family of design disciplines. The role of curator has sharpened and the web can be viewed like an installation. One premise for growing Design Feast is to help designers, of course, but especially the “design-curious” become more aware and receptive to what design is, as well as its diversity of thought and practice. “Liberal Arts 2.0” blogger Jason Kottke described his site as a kind of “Wunderkammer,” a German word roughly meaning “cabinet of wonders” or “cabinet of curiosities.” My intent is for Design Feast to be that to everyone.

From interviewee’s rare book collection

You collect rare books on design—can you talk about book design in general, what you think some of the most books are and why? What are your favorite volumes and why?

Designing a book requires a totally coordinated effort, literally from end-to-end. Lots of decisions go into thinking in spreads. Herbert Bayer’s World Geo-Graphic Atlas (1953) is an example I frequently reference. Within the 368-page Atlas reside “one hundred twenty full-page maps of the world supported by one thousand two hundred diagrams, graphs, charts, symbols about the planet earth.” All were done before the birth of digital page layout. This book particularly speaks to the creative weave of data and curiosity to visualize, contrast and discern patterns—an ultimate discovery. I mentioned the notebook as a major source of iteration with web-based versions, such as Evernote. Then there are Nicholas Felton’s printed annual reports of personal data, which influenced the creation of Daytum, a web-based method to collect and communicate daily data.

I’m also fond of the first editions of books written and designed by Paul Rand, who lived the roles of design writer and critic before such monikers became popular. It’s one thing to craft the front and back cover, and spread after spread. It’s quite another to craft an attractive table of contents and populate each chapter. Mining subject matter, including one’s experience, and synthesizing a Wunderkammer between two covers is a struggle.

What has been the best graphic design exhibition that you’ve seen? Why did you think it was compelling?

The only design exhibitions I see are virtual, with the bevy of portfolios and case studies shared by designers, studios and agencies. Site aggregators like FFFFOUND and Manystuff further compound exhibition streaming online. Aside from student design shows, I haven’t noticed a lot of design (particularly graphic design) exhibitions in museums, except for the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. It held National Design Week in 2008. The Newberry Library offers an interesting line-up of exhibits in its main-floor galleries, which are small but pack a historical and cultural punch. Libraries naturally showcase the typographic matter of their collections and are a nimble alternative to museums.

How important is community when it comes to thinking about innovation and graphic design?

One most recent innovative example that I discovered, with origins in graphic design, was HealthSimple. It’s a system to help make life a littler easier for those living with diabetes. It was founded by a couple, Lisa and Doug Powell, who are graphic designers, and whose daughter was diagnosed with diabetes. Their family circumstances compelled them to “better serve a community of good people who happen to have the D word in common.” The direct connection to healthcare is impressive here, and more so, the discovery of a need.

A shared interest sparks a community of interest and participation. Starting it, seeing it through, sticking with it at an organic pace, especially when it comes to “building community” is what floors me. “Build it and they will come” can easily be a false positive.

What projects can we expect to see from you in the future?

Keep working on Design Feast, feeding it and its e-newsletter, along with the kindred blogs Design Feaster and Design Thought Leader. I’m trying to keep up with writing blog pieces. I also want to continue contributing to other design-oriented blogs. I have the cool opportunity to write for BBDK’s Thinking for a Living, GraphicHug. I want to realize more participation in both the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire) and Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire). I’m planning to make a more elaborate book version of the first 25 releases of the Designer’s Quest(ionnaire). Also, Design Engage, a job board for design internships, freelance design and junior design jobs was recently made. Furthermore, I’d love to virtually share my rare design book collection.

On December 12, Artecnica hosted a party celebrating the end of the year showcasing some of its latest products and welcoming Project H, the international social design non-profit, which will be unveiling their latest work at our headquarters in Los Angeles. In partnership with the Downtown Women's Center, the Los Angeles chapter has designed a series of textile-based products that give the Center's once-homeless women a means to skills, income, and self-sufficiency.

These-dual function designs use re-purposed materials and are crafted in skill-building workshops. In making the products, the Center’s women learn sewing and garment construction skills. The products are then sold to generate income for both the women and the Center. From a broader perspective, this project is a social design case study, examining the scalability of a design-based model that benefits homeless populations across the country.

This event marked the debut of Abject Object's line and a very limited number will be available for purchase. The event included music, food, and drink and is sponsored by the Downtown Women's Center, Good Magazine, TOMS Shoes, Dogs Bollocks 5, and New Belgium Brewing.

It was an unanticipated and divine display of affection: We were thrilled when The Magazine Antiques asked The Curated Object's Joanne Molina to do a guest blog for the website. Of course, The Curated Object would also like to recognize the expertise of its senior editors JoAnn Greco and Cappi Williamson-- who never cease to amaze with their generosity. Still dazed, delighted and with bursting hearts we would like to extend our sincere thanks for their most humbling request.

October 7, 2009 | As part of our recurring series of guest bloggers (see our earlier feature with Art Inconnu here) we are pleased to introduce Joanne Molina, editorial director of The Curated Object—a non-profit media project that promotes fine and decorative arts exhibitions worldwide. We asked Molina to share a "curated" list of current and upcoming exhibitions that aren't to be missed!.....

It was the Pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus who said we never step into the same river twice-- a profound statement about the flux of time and the fluid nature of identity (it is never the same river and you are never the same person). And in the trajectory of those who use the river as a way to think about the depth and meaning of life and the things that surround us we find an unlikely suspect: the Italian goldsmith Andrea Cagnetti, who chose "Akelo" as his artistic name. Referring to this Greek word found near ancient sites where rivers flowed in Italy many moons ago, it's a constant reminder that each of his jewels and objects is a singular expression that evokes images, thoughts and techniques from past and present.

As his colleague Paolo d' Ambrosio muses, "The peculiarity of Akelo's works seems to be the ability to symbolize a sort of flux, a fluidity that is not rightly characterized as self-referential; this fluidity tends rather to represent the motion of reality in its multiplicity. Here also we find the relevance of the creation of this artist who "gave life" to an original line of precious handmade pieces." This strange temporality is achieved using Greek, Etruscan and Roman goldsmithing techniques exhaustively studied and reimagined for over a decade. Quietly and humbly working from his home in Corchiano, a small town in Tuscany, his most coveted work displays his mastery of a technique called granulation. In his essay on Akelo, Livio Martini explains "...it's a special art similar to welding--- a technique almost imperceptible to the human eye. Using this method on precious metal leaves, tiny golden granules appear. This is a technique in which the Etruscan artists were masters."

Still, while technical duplication is a difficult and admirable task, Cagnetti's work asks more of those who behold it - and of himself. Martini describes the artist's special version of this technique as "...a particular application of what's known as the silhouette or dust technique which allows Akelo to create harmonious geometric and animal motifs on golden leaves." On his petit gold and ivory sceptre (1999) he deftly crafts sheet gold into a conical shape imbued with geometric decoratifs in filigree. In addition to the obvious reference to the ancient world, the piece recalls Art Deco. But it also speaks easily to contemporary trends, a hint of its timelessness. Circles, petals, triangles, semicircles, meanders and zoomorphic motifs of birds, lions and canids are all rendered using “fine dust” granulation. The top of the sceptre presents a corolla, also in filigree but surprisingly surmounted by the head of a goose made from ivory, a nod to Eastern Greece, V – IV century BC.

Honored by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in March 2008 when they placed his "Chort" pendant in their permanent collection, Cagnetti is an acknowledged master. "Andrea Cagnetti's work is important for two reasons," says Elyse Zorn Karlin, publisher of Adornment Magazine, co-director of the Association for the Study of Jewelry & Related Arts and author of Jewelry & Metalwork in the Arts & Crafts Tradition. "It keeps up the continuum of bringing ancient designs into the modern world. Those of us who study the history of jewelry know that the revivals of ancient styles become the coveted antique jewels of the future," she explains. "And his superb goldsmith work and his mastery of ancient techniques makes his work dazzling and amazing!"

The cliche is true: all that glitters is not gold. In fact, when Cagnetti contacted me many months ago to introduce himself and explain his project, I had just finished a conversation with a friend about how everyone with a bit of capital thinks they can "design" jewelry. So, truth be told, I approached his work with trepidation. However, once immersed in Cagnetti's world-- a place where beauty, truth and goodness intermingle with the ancient art and philosophy of smithing gold-- a renewed allegiance to the craft was born. Not only was I more than happy to spread the word about him to colleagues and friends, I was also pleasantly reminded how imagination and education are the true marks of a great artisan--Joanne Molina

PROGRAM FOR THE JEWELRY CONFERENCE AT THE FASHION INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, beginning October 9-11, 2009

Speakers and artists from Europe and many noted jewelry historians and artists from the United States will be featured at In Its Time: Materials and Techniques Throughout Jewelry History, an all-day conference to be held at The Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City. The conference takes place the weekend of October 9-11, 2009 and is the Fourth Annual Conference on Jewelry & Related Arts presented by the Association for the Study of Jewelry & Related Arts (ASJRA). This conference is open to anyone who loves jewelry...even beginners in collecting and studying jewelry will enjoy it. It’s also an opportunity to meet people from all aspects of the jewelry world: artists, appraisers, historians, curators, antique jewelry dealers, journalists and more.

Visiting from Europe:

Jack Ogden(Chief Executive of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain; author of Jewellery of the Ancient World) Speaking on: A Golden Age: A 5000 Year History of Jewelry Making

Degrees of Preciosity: The Use of Innovative Materials and Techniques by American Studio Jewelers

Barbara Seidenath (jewelry artist)

Seductive Glass: The Use of Enamels in Jewelry

Jan Yager (jewelry artist)

City Flora/City Flotsam: How Materials Inspire A Jewelry Artist

The all-day conference will take place on Sunday, October 11, 2009 in the Katie Murphy Auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology, 27th St. and Seventh Avenue in New York City. In addition, two study days are offered on October 9 and 10th as follows:

Study Day 1: Friday, October 9, 2009

Morning

A curator’s tour of the Jan Mitchell Treasury (Gold of the Americas) at

The Metropolitan Museum.

Lunch at the upscale restaurant at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

near the Petrie Sculpture Court

Afternoon

Talk by Alan Bronstein—A Passion for Colored Diamonds

Alan Bronstein is the creator of the Aurora Pyramid currently on loan to

the Natural History Museum, London and the Aurora Butterfly of Peace

currently on view in The Nature of Diamonds Exhibition at the Houston

Museum of Natural History (TX) through September 7 and then moves to

the Field Museum of Natural History (IL).

The talk will take place at the Neue Galerie where attendees will be served

Viennese coffee, cold beverages and dessert.

We end the day with a wine reception at the Aaron Faber Gallery and an opportunity to meet two important European goldsmiths Andrea Cagnetti and Lucie Heskett-Brem. Their work will be on view all weekend.

Private Lunch at Periyali Restaurant (the restaurant will be closed to

the public)

Afternoon

Visit to the studio of jewelry artist Giuliana Michelotti

Curator's tour of the exhibition Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright

Collection at the Museum of Arts & Design.

The co-directors of the conference are:

Elyse Zorn Karlin, publisher of Adornment Magazine; co-director of the Association for the Study of Jewelry & Related Arts; past president of the American Society of Jewelry Historians, author of Jewelry & Metalwork in the Arts & Crafts Tradition and co-author of Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry. Yvonne Markowitz, Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan, curator of Jewelry, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; co-director of the Association for the Study of Jewelry & Related Arts; past editor of Jewelry: The Journal of the American Society of Jewelry Historians, and co-author of American Luxury: Jewelry from the House of Tiffany and Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry. Anyone interested in the conference can find details at www.jewelryconference.com or may request a brochure at ekarlin@usa.net or by calling (914) 286-7685.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today thata new gallery dedicated to Safavid and Later Persian Art (1500-1924) has been designated the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Gallery. It is one of a suite of exhibition spaces—the Galleries for the Arts of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia—that are overseen by the Museum’s Department of Islamic Art and are scheduled to open in 2011.

In addition to funding the gallery naming, Mr. and Mrs. Mossavar-Rahmani’s significant grant will fund the publication of a catalogue on the entire collection of the Department of Islamic Art and an endowment to support educational programming on Iranian art – all part of the overall project of $50 million including capital and endowment. “In announcing the naming of the new gallery, I am delighted to recognize the many years of generous and exemplary support of Bijan and Sharmin,” commented Thomas P. Campbell, Director of the Metropolitan Museum. “The Museum’s superb collection of Iranian art—one of the largest anywhere—is perhaps unrivalled in quality and scope in the western world, and we very much look forward to putting it back on view. Beautiful new galleries will serve as a perfect setting in which to present Persia’s unparalleled aesthetic achievements, the deep interconnections between Iran and its neighboring cultures, and its influence stretching to Europe and China. We hope these galleries and the works of art they contain will foster a greater understanding among cultures, which is much needed in today’s world.”

Emily K. Rafferty, the Museum’s President, continued: “Bijan and Sharmin’s interest in the activities of the Museum—and especially those of the Department of Islamic Art—has taken on special meaning with this leadership gift to the Islamic gallery renovation initiative. In an encyclopedic museum such as the Met, it is our duty as well as our great pleasure to share art of the highest quality from all periods of time and all parts of the world with our global visitors. During this difficult time, we are particularly grateful to Bijan and Sharmin for their unwavering support of the Museum’s mission.”

The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Gallery will feature masterpieces created in Tabrîz and Isfahân under the imperial Safavid dynasty in the 16th and 17th centuries, and important works from the later 18th- and 19th-century Zand and Qâjâr Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Gallery periods. Among the highlights are the world-famous illustrations to the Book of Kings (Shâh-Nâmeh) that were painted by some of Iran's greatest artists and assembled for Shâh Tahmâsp between 1525 and 1535, and the magnificent Emperor's Carpet—one of the largest and most beautiful Persian carpets in the world—from the mid-16th century.

Active in industry and international affairs, Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani serves concurrently as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Foxtrot International, LDC, a Franco-American oil and gas company that operates in West Africa, and as CEO of Mondoil Enterprises, LLC, an energy holding company in the United States. He was the founder and President of Houston-based Apache International, Inc., and served as the Assistant Director for International Energy Studies at Harvard University’s Energy and Environmental Policy Center. A former delegate to OPEC Ministerial Conferences, he is the author of numerous books and articles on global energy markets. He was educated at Princeton and Harvard universities, and serves on the Visiting Committee of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, of which he is an alumnus. He has been decorated a Commandeur de l’Ordre National de la Côte d’Ivoire, for services to the energy sector of that country. At the Metropolitan, he has served on the Visiting Committee for Islamic Art since 2003. In recognition of his active interest in the Museum, he was named to the Board of Trustees in January 2009.

Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, is the author of two books and numerous articles on portfolio management. She is a member of the Board of Trustees and the Investment Committee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, and the National Advisory Board of the Merage Institute for the American Dream. She holds a baccalaureate from Princeton and a master’s degree from Stanford University. Together with her husband, she has been a member of the Metropolitan Museum since 1985, and a member of the Museum’s Friends of Islamic Art since 2000. Through the initiative of the Noruz at the Met Committee, of which the Mossavar- Rahmanis are members, proceeds from two benefit celebrations of Noruz (Persian New Year) have raised more than $1.5 million to name an additional gallery— focusing on the medieval city of Nishapur in northeastern Iran—in honor of the Iranian-American community. The Nishapur gallery, also opening in 2011, will contain materials that were excavated by the Iranian Expedition of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in several digs in the 1930s and 1940s. From architectural fragments that were found at the site, the Museum has reconstructed with accuracy the highly decorated walls of a small room from the 10th century.

Guggenheim Presents A Protest Against Forgetting: A Brief History of Curating

Monday, July 20, 6:30 pm

"It is rare that we have the opportunity to celebrate our own eco-system."- Richard Armstrong

While it may be tempting to think about objects solely within the context of your own environs and situatedness, be brave and actually learn something about the people who listen to the tales object shave to tell, studying their lives and histories.

Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-director of the Serpentine Gallery, discuss the legacy of Walter Hopps, one of the 11 groundbreaking curators gathered together in A Brief History of Curating, Obrist's most recent book. Through their focus on reinvention and experimentation, the practices of these innovative curators provide a guide into emerging artistic landscapes. The program is followed by a reception.

This program is co-organized by the Sackler Center for Arts Education and ForYourArt.

$5 General Admission; FREE to members, students, and staff of other museums with ID and RSVP.

To RSVP, call the Box Office at 212 423 3587, M-F, 1-5 pm. Tickets may be purchased at guggenheim.org/education or by calling the Box Office. Space is limited.

When The Charles Engelhard Court—the grand, light-filled pavilion that has long served as the formal entrance to The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing—reopens thisspring after two years of construction and renovation, the Museum’s unparalleled collections of American ceramics, sculpture, stained glass, architectural elements, silver, pewter, glass, and jewelry will finally be seen in all their glory. So, too, will its early American rooms—12 of the Met’s historic interiors, mostly from the colonial period, located on three floors of the wing’s historic core—that have been reordered, renovated, and reinterpreted. The popular American Wing Café will also reopen in its previous location on the park side of the court.

The opening of the galleries marks the completion of the second part (begun in May 2007) of a project to reconfigure, renovate, or upgrade nearly every section of The American Wing by 2011. Morrison H. Heckscher, the Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of The American Wing, described the project as “architecture in the cause of art.” He continued: “The goal of the comprehensive renovation of The American Wing is to present the Museum’s superlative collections in the clearest and most logical, as well as most beautiful, manner possible. Toward that end, we have called upon the building itself—in the use of clear glass for walls and parapets and even a new public elevator, for example—to provide visual access to all facets of the collections.”

Upon entering The Charles Engelhard Court, visitors will immediately encounter a new display of some 60 examples of large-scale sculpture, mosaics, stained glass, and architectural elements. The monumental sculpture collection will be installed on a new main-floor level—near the stunning loggia designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany for the main entrance of Laurelton Hall (about 1905), his Oyster Bay, Long Island, residence—as well as on a lower level in front of the façade of Martin E. Thompson's Branch Bank of the United States (1822–24), originally located at 15 1/2 Wall Street in New York City. Included will be marble and bronze figurative works by such American master sculptors as Hiram Powers (1805–1873), Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880– 1980), and Paul Manship (1885–1966). These familiar works have been reinstalled in new groupings to encourage aesthetic and thematic comparisons and allow viewers unprecedented up-close access. Notable is the relocation of the marble Milmore and Melvin memorials by Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) from the balcony to the first floor, where they can be appreciated in proximity to other superlative American Beaux-Arts sculptures. The popular pool feature has been redesigned to showcase two bronze fountains by Frederick William MacMonnies (1863–1937) and Janet Scudder (1869–1940) that are piped to spout water. John La Farge’s ambitious allegorical Welcome Window (1908–9)—a virtuosic work in stained glass—will be installed next to Saint-Gaudens’s marble-and-mosaic tour de force Vanderbilt Mantelpiece (1881–83). American neoclassical marbles of the mid- 19th century will return to the courtyard, displayed in a distinct group between a new seating area and the Branch Bank façade.

Balcony Galleries The American Wing’s outstanding collections of ceramics, glass, silver, and pewter will be

installed in the balcony galleries in an integrated chronological sequence, beginning with the colonial period on the east side and continuing into the 20th century on the west, overlooking Central Park. Individual cases will be arranged by medium or theme. Among the highlights of the silver display will be the work of such familiar names as Paul Revere, Jr., and Tiffany & Company. A newly constructed mezzanine-level balcony, accessible via a staircase in the northwest corner, will be devoted almost entirely to the display of a major recent acquisition—250 superb examples of American art pottery crafted between 1876 and 1956, a promised gift of Robert A. Ellison Jr.—that has never before been publicly seen.

Stained-glass windows of the same period, by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), William Gray Purcell (1880–1965) and George Grant Elmslie (1869–1952), and George Washington Maher (1864–1926) that incorporate large amounts of clear glass will also be installed nearby, with Central Park visible through them. Additional stunning examples of mid-19th-century ecclesiastical stained-glass windows, installed on the upper balcony to allow for close examination by visitors, will be visible from the courtyard, approximating their original vantage points. Work by every major designer of American stained glass will be represented in this display, the most comprehensive presentation in any American museum.

In all, nearly 1,000 works of art will be exhibited, including two new cases devoted entirely to American jewelry, ranging from early 18th-century mourning rings to surprising works of the Arts & Crafts period. From the courtyard below, the new glass-fronted balconies will reveal a panoply of color, form, and brilliance. Period Rooms The American Wing’s 20 period rooms—19 of which return to view this spring— provide an unparalleled view of American domestic architecture and interior design over three centuries.

Twelve rooms, dating from 1680 to 1810, have been newly renovated. The new installation also involved the removal of several interiors of minor interest, the relocation of two 18thcentury rooms (the Verplanck Room, 1767, and the Marmion Room, 1756), and the addition of one new room—from the 1751 Daniel Peter Winne house near Albany, New York—which will be among the rooms opening this May. Built in the Dutch architectural tradition, the Winne Room will be used as a gallery for the display of the Museum’s superb collection of furniture, silver, painted glass, and early portraiture made and used in the Dutch cultural areas of colonial New York.

With the renovation of the period rooms, visitors will be able to take a complete tour of American interiors and decorative arts in chronological sequence, from the 17th century (the Hart Room, 1680) to the 20th century (the Frank Lloyd Wright Room, 1912–14). A new glass elevator will carry visitors directly to the third floor, where the earliest rooms are located. Recent research has led to changes in the appearance or interpretation of several of the rooms.

Touch-screen computers will allow the public to access many layers of information about each room, with sections on the objects that are displayed in it, the architecture of the house that the room came from, the original owners, and the history of the room and its installation after it came to the Metropolitan Museum.

The rooms on each floor surround three main decorative arts galleries, which will be new installed with fine examples of American furniture and portraiture. These will include masterpieces by 18th-century cabinetmakers such as John Townsend of Newport and Thomas Affleck of Philadelphia, and 19th-century counterparts Duncan Phyfe and Charles Honoré Lannuier of New York. The Erving and Joyce Wolf Gallery Located within The American Wing, The Erving and Joyce Wolf Gallery is one of some 20 spaces at the Museum specifically designed to accommodate several special exhibitions per year. As part of this second phase of renovations, new wood floors and new lighting were installed in the space. The first exhibition to be housed in the renovated gallery is Augustus Saint-Gaudens, opening June 30, 2009.

The final phase of the American Wing renovation project will include the American paintings and sculpture galleries and the addition of eight completely new galleries for the display of the Museum’s superb collection of this material. Related Programs A variety of education programs will be offered in conjunction with the New American Wing galleries opening this May, including: a May 30 afternoon of lectures in the Sunday at the Met program; gallery talks focusing on the variety of media and styles of art on view; family programs for children ages 5-12 and accompanying adult; and workshops for adults with visual impairments, as well as for families with children and adults with learning and/or developmental disabilities.

Credits

The project is under the general direction of Morrison H. Heckscher, the Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of The American Wing, and Peter M. Kenny, Curator of American Decorative Arts and Administrator of The American Wing. The installations within The Charles Engelhard Court were coordinated by Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, the Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts, together with Beth Carver Wees, Curator of American Decorative Arts, and Thayer Tolles, Associate Curator of American Painting and Sculpture. The period room installations were overseen by Amelia Peck, the Marica Vilcek Curator of American Decorative Arts. The overall project architect is Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLP; the Engelhard Court installations are by Michael Lapthorn, Exhibition Designer; the period room installations are by Stephen Saitas Design; and lighting is by Richard Renfro Associates.

Conservation of works of art in all media was carried out under the general direction of Lawrence Becker, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge, with Linda Borsch and Marijn Manuels, Conservators, and Drew Anderson, Associate Conservator, all of the Department of Objects Conservation.

Winterthur, DE —March 2, 2009 — Winterthur Museum & Country Estate has initiated new tour offerings and pricing options to provide visitors with greater opportunities to enjoy its world-class collections of American decorative arts.

Winterthur will now offer visitors a single ticket option, providing them with full access to the Winterthur Gardenand Galleries as well as an introductory tour showcasing some of the most spectacular rooms in the 175-room house. The new adult general admission rate will be $18, a $2 savings from

Winterthur’s former two-tier pricing structure of $15 for Garden and Galleries admission plus an additional $5 fee for a house tour. The tours will be offered daily with first tours of the house departing at 10:30 am and final tours departing at 3:30 pm. Admission tickets are valid for two consecutive days.

In addition, Winterthur will now offer specialized one- and two-hour reserved tours on a rotating schedule. Tour topics will change seasonally and will provide in-depth opportunities to focus on specific parts of the 85,000-object collection or on special themes. In March, the one-hour tour will be “Distinctive Collections,” providing a wide overview of the collections amassed by

Henry Francis du Pont, and providing visitors with opportunities to appreciate the collection in period-era settings.

Two options will be available in March for two-hour tours. “Living with Antiques I” and “Living with Antiques II” will provide detailed looks at specific objects in

Winterthur ’s collection of American decorative arts, showcased in period rooms throughout the house. The one- and two-hour tours will depart at scheduled times throughout the day. Details on tour times and offerings are available by contacting 800.448.3883 or by visiting winterthur.org.

“These new admission offerings will make it easier for first-time visitors to sample all of the wonderful facets of Winterthur and will also provide return visitors with fresh, new ways to explore the collections,” said Jeff Groff, director of public programs.